NETHERLANDS

P.C. Hooft Prize goes to Nachoem Wijnberg

Poetry International congratulates Nachoem M. Wijnberg (Amsterdam, 1961) on being awarded the P.C. Hooft Prize for his poetry.

"To read Wijnberg is to enter a perspicuous way of thinking, in a language that is both crystal clear and dangerous: everywhere a trap may have been set, and, as a result, what has just been read suddenly appears in a different light", the jury notes in its statement. The jury also praised the generous "diversity" of points of view through which the poet observes his world: the self becomes a general human perspective and so of "great, enormous importance".

This year marks exactly 70 years since the P.C. Hooft prize was first awarded. Named after the Golden Age poet Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft, who died in 1647, the prize is annual - alternating among prose, essay and poetry - and is considered one of the most important Dutch awards for literature.